


Welcome to Pandora, Kiddos!

by InTheEndItMatters



Series: Through the Borderlands [1]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:24:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5606674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InTheEndItMatters/pseuds/InTheEndItMatters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small train car, an ex-soldier, a siren, a Pandoran, and Mr. Shadow.</p><p>This series is just the plot of Borderlands, plain and simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to Pandora, Kiddos!

The train rolled to a stop and the tall figure slowly lifted their head. It had been rolling for an hour and they’d already picked apart the room bit by bit, mapping every inch of the car in their mind. The door opened, flooding the dim room with light as three figures entered, the figure didn’t move.  
Loud laughter followed them and the figure stared at them silently, observing everything, how they walked, how they held themselves, how they talked. How they might fight. The woman had blue tattoos, a siren, or trying to impersonate one. They would assume the first, better over prepared than under. The shortest one, with strange hair, stood there slouching and looked around the car. He carried a gun on each leg and looked bored. The last one, they noticed, held himself up, shoulders back, head held high. Like a soldier, he scanned the room until his eyes settled on them. He practically jumped out of his boots and reached for his pistol. His action caused the others to tense up and look over at the dark sitting figure sitting in the shadows.  
The brown-haired man cocked an eyebrow but kept his hand on his pistol, they had observed it to be old and broken down, with the word DAHL printed on the side. “You a Vault Hunter, Mr. Shadow?” He said suspiciously, moving between them and the woman with blue hair. Funny, was he trying to impress her?  
They moved their head, fractions of an inch, but it was a nod nonetheless. The man took his hand off his pistol and stretched it out to them, and they looked at it. It was rugged, calloused from hard work and had small scars crossing across the palm. They tilted their helmet up to look at the man. “What’s wrong, Mr. Shadow? Never done a handshake before?”  
At this they stood up, towering over the man and looking down at him, who was obviously taken aback at their sudden increase in height. They didn’t take his hand but looked over him at the other two, analyzing their expressions more.  
“Uh… My name’s Axton, former Dahl Sergeant. And your name is...?” His voice brought their attention back down to the shorter man and they tilted their head a fraction of an inch, former? Questions for another day. They continued to stare at him silently.  
The woman behind him chimed in irritably “Come on Mr. Shadow,” she used the nickname the soldier had given them, which irked him, but he stayed silent. “Spit it out!”  
“I would rather not / The spit would dirty my mask / It would be a pain.” They replied simply, their mechanical tone not echoing through the car.  
The siren blinked at the tall figure, suspicious of his every word. “So are you a Vault Hunter or not?” She obviously hadn’t seen them nod and they suppressed a sigh at their lack of observation. How would anyone survive on Pandora being so naive?  
“I am one indeed / I have come for a challenge / I long to spill blood.”  
The three stared at them silently, they had all come for their own reasons, but none had come specifically to kill. The soldier and the siren glanced at each other but the short man with wild hair burst out laughing, taking the rest of them off guard, though the tall figure didn’t show it.  
“You never told us your name, amigo!” The man was awfully loud for being so short.  
“Zer0” They said simply.  
The other three looked at each other. “What kinda name is that? That’s a number, not a name!” The irritable siren said, crossing her arms and leaning all her weight onto one of her legs.  
“The mere fact that-” The tall figure was cut off as a loud crash signaled multiple Loaders coming into the train car. The man called Axton threw down a turret, and they didn’t see the rest as they jumped up to a latch they had seen on the roof of the car, quickly undoing it and sliding out undetected to the roof. They kneel on the thin metal and listen to the gunfire under them before two men appear behind them.  
One tries to slug them in the gut, but they fade out of existence, appearing behind them and thrusting their sword through one’s back. They flying through the air skillfully and pushing the other into the glowing blue sword skewered through the other man’s chest and they both crumple off the side of the car, the sword disappearing with a flash of blue light and reappearing on the tall figure’s belt.  
They slide back through the hatch as the noise calms down below them, observing bullet holes in the robots and what looks like char-marks on one of the walls. The other three are standing by the door leading to the next car and Axton moves his head in short jerks like he’s trying to signal them to charge in, when none of them move he rolls his eyes and kicks the door open.  
A figure sits in the chair, Handsome Jack. Or.. Not? Springs stick out of his body, the chair turns, a robot.  
And lots of explosives.  
“Welcome to Pandora, kiddos!”  
Axton yells, “Get the hell back!”  
The short man pulls Axton away from the door.  
The siren braces herself.  
Zer0 disappears.  
A deafening explosion.

Yes, welcome indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh dear lords, the sentence structure on this thing... I'll have to fix it at some point...  
> Some point that's not 12:30 in the morning on a school night! :T


End file.
